D&D (2024) Jeremy Crawford Gives an Overview of the New Unearthed Arcana

The upcoming Unearthed Arcana playtest packet for One D&D gets a preview from WotC's Jeremy Crawford. This is apparently the largest of these playtest packets so far, and the biggest Unearthed Arcana they have ever done, at 50 pages long.

It contains 5 classes, new spells, new feats, a revised rules glossary, and the new weapon mastery system.

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[Yaarel]

There was a debate in some of the Facebook RPG groups (and I am sure elsewhere) over the past couple of weeks about the new "Spirit Points" for the Monk.

Is it possible to summarize what the objections are, exactly?

For example, would calling them "Aura Points" help resolve the issue? Or are the objections about something else entirely?

Some Asian American gamers found the term particularly problematic as well as renewed debate about the appropriateness of a Monk class overall.

Personally, I prefer to rename the Monk class as "Athlete".

Then the Athlete class includes a subclass that emphasizes the more mystical and monastic flavors.



But I want to hear from others about such proposals. I want Asian American gamers to find aspects of D&D that make one feel included and represented within the game in a dignifying way.

It could be WOTC decided to send all their work back to the sensitivity readers.

I would do the same if I was WotC.

 

[Azzy]

Personally, I prefer to rename the Monk class as "Athlete".

Or go the route that Final Fantasy XIV went and call it the Pugilist.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Personality

Golfbag Fighters is not to me the best representation of the core Fighter. Few warriors in fantasy and real life use a golfbag of weapons.

Most warriors use a preferred melee weapon and a preferred ranged weapon.

Well actually... not really true and where true mostly driven by economic.
Now I can really only speak for European History. It is true that the basic set up for most warriors would have been a spear and a shield with a sword as a sidearm if they could afford one.
However, while no warrior carried a bag of weapons into battle, in the high medieval period knights and men at arms carried weapons chosen for the role that they were going to play in the upcoming fight.
So on foot, the common primary weapon would have been a pole arm (usually a pole axe) with an arming sword and a rondel (or similar ) dagger as secondary weapons.
On horse the primary would have been the lance, with the long sword as the common sidearm, however the practice of carrying maces, axes or hammers on the saddle was pretty common.

The big difference in D&D is that the warrior often has plethora of weapons on their person where as the actual historical warriors would have at most 3 on their person but what those were could and did vary depending on the role in the upcoming fight.

Ironically the Golfbag Warrior is Iconically the Monk and other Monk adjancents like Ninjas and Pugilists.

 

[Minigiant]

Well actually... not really true and where true mostly driven by economic.
Now I can really only speak for European History. It is true that the basic set up for most warriors would have been a spear and a shield with a sword as a sidearm if they could afford one.
However, while no warrior carried a bag of weapons into battle, in the high medieval period knights and men at arms carried weapons chosen for the role that they were going to play in the upcoming fight.
So on foot, the common primary weapon would have been a pole arm (usually a pole axe) with an arming sword and a rondel (or similar ) dagger as secondary weapons.
On horse the primary would have been the lance, with the long sword as the common sidearm, however the practice of carrying maces, axes or hammers on the saddle was pretty common.

The big difference in D&D is that the warrior often has plethora of weapons on their person where as the actual historical warriors would have at most 3 on their person but what those were could and did vary depending on the role in the upcoming fight.

Yes. There's a huge difference between

Spear, shield, sword, and bow.
and
Spear, shield, battleaxe, warhammer, sword, pick, halberd, light hammer, bow, crossbow

or
Choose hammer or sword and swing 3 times
and
Atacck with hammer, drop hammer, draw sword, attack with sword, drop sword, draw axe, attack with axe

 

[Yaarel]

Or go the route that Final Fantasy XIV went and call it the Pugilist.

Maybe Pugilist is an Athlete subclass?

Pugilist feels to focused on punching with the "fist", whence boxing.

But an "Athlete" can ... punch, kick, wrestle, run, jump, climb, somersault, throw javelins, etcetera.

I feel Athlete is the more useful name for a class, and can comprise many subclasses that focus on physical stunts, including ones for a body-oriented mysticism.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Yes. There's a huge difference between

Spear, shield, sword, and bow.
and
Spear, shield, battleaxe, warhammer, sword, pick, halberd, light hammer, bow, crossbow

or
Choose hammer or sword and swing 3 times
and
Atacck with hammer, drop hammer, draw sword, attack with sword, drop sword, draw axe, attack with axe

Well, I have read accounts of the Mamelukes in action and what they did was not totally different than the last example, albeit with a different weapon load out.
Secondly Shadiversity has a video on how many weapons an adventurer could possibly carry. More, I think than I would like to hike 10 or 20 km with.
Thirdly you are looking at this from a realism perspective, with is fair but also not something the system can be expected to carry.
This is a game where some people want to be Ichigo from Bleach, some Finn McCool and others the guy following John Clease clapping the coconuts together.
If you want realism at the table, that is fair, but everyone there needs to be on the same page as to what is real and/or your authority to arbitrate. Now you already know this. Not everyone wants this from the game and for the record the weight of weapons in D&D are completely arbitrary.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Or go the route that Final Fantasy XIV went and call it the Pugilist.

A quick way to make it a lame and redundant class.

A pugilist is an unarmed fighter.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which weapons deserve "plot protection", to make them intentionally slightly better than other weapons? It depends on the culture of the setting.

Personally, I want circa 1000 Norse weapons to be effective:

• Sword (same as knightly arming sword and Celtic spatha, but different from the longsword)
• Spear (hunting)
• Axe (wood)
• Bow (hunting)
• Knife (utility)

I want the circa 1300 Versatile Longsword to be worthwhile for freehand grappling or extra damage.

I dont especially care about the Renaissance Greatsword, but maybe anime fans enjoy this as a "buster sword"? Likewise I dont care about the Renaissance Rapier. I would rather have the proper knightly arming sword to do the 1d8 finesse damage along with a shield. The Renaissance stuff can get distracting, but I am actually ok with a certain city featuring Leonardo Di Vinci Renaissance flavor as part of a local setting flavor.

I want the Shortsword to be effective, for the flavors of Germanic seax, Roman gladius of gladiator combat, Greek Ksiphos, and so on.

I want to see a katana − namely a Versatile Finesse weapon − be effective.

I would like see nets and bolos be more effective for combat, because fun.



The weapons that have the best gaming mechanics are the ones that the players choose. The prominence of certain weapons is enormously vital for the overall flavor of the game.

When you imagine the "default" medievalesque vanilla D&D setting:
• Which weapons come to mind?
• Which weapons do you care about, that you want to make sure are prominent and are good choices mechanically?
• Are there any weapons that you find distracting, that maybe dont make them so great?

I don't think any weapon should be mechanically superior to another for narrative reasons. That just seems ridiculous to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Or go the route that Final Fantasy XIV went and call it the Pugilist.

Level Up called it the Adept.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I am wondering if the second level feature will be how wizard get schools. In the cleric the second level boon is called Holy Order and you get a choice of Protection, Scholar and Thaumaturge. Perhaps the wizard will get a school feature and say you take Abjuration then you get something like Arcane Ward or something similar and another option at level 9 like Improved Abjuration

So much for my awesome powers of prediction. The new UA video has dropped and looks like the evoker is still in the game.
So, what will the other 3 sub classes be next year? I still feel that 3 more magic school subclasses would be super lame.